


The Glass Around Your Heart

by fishfingersandjellybabies



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:03:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishfingersandjellybabies/pseuds/fishfingersandjellybabies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Dick loved him. Dick loved him to <i>pieces</i>. Saw him as a little brother, saw him as a little <i>more</i>, and knew he deserved better than being so lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glass Around Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t actually know what this is. Inspired by ‘Babel’ by Mumford&Sons

~~

_Press my nose up to the glass around your heart. I should've known I was weaker from the start. You'll build your walls, and I will play my bloody part, To tear, tear them down._

_Well I'm gonna tear, tear them down._

~~

There was a wall there. Dick could feel it, _had_ felt it, from the first day he met him.

It was tall, and strong, and that strength didn’t match up with the tiny child that barrier protected. It was also invisible, and the people who should have seen it – Bruce, Talia, _Tim_ , even – didn’t. _Couldn’t_ , maybe.

But Dick did.

He saw it clearly. Tried to get past it time and time again. Climb it, destroy it, go through it. But nothing worked, and Damian remained unobtainable. Stuck in the confines of his self-made prison. Alone and heartbroken and distant. So far away it was like he was an animal on display at a zoo. For all of Gotham to stare and point and laugh at.

And when Bruce died, it only got worse.

It was like the cage got bigger.

And then everything with Tim.

It was like the fortress got taller.

Dick was desperate. Because Damian was a good kid. A _great_ kid. And somehow, despite the walls and barriers and harsh words and obvious avoidance – Dick loved him. Dick loved him to _pieces_. Saw him as a little brother, saw him as a little _more_ , and knew he deserved better than being so lonely.

So he sat there, at that wall. Watched Damian through it. Walked the perimeter of the cage, looked for its weak spots. Did so cheerfully, even as Damian pushed. As Damian curled in on himself and went on the defensive. Sent bullets and fireballs and anything he could to keep Dick away.

And then Talia disowned him.

The walls got thicker.

But something snapped, then, and that was it. _That_ didn’t matter. Dick decided then, at that moment, that _none_ of it mattered. He was done being tactful. He was done waiting.

He pressed his hands against the wall. Pressed his nose against the glass. Smiled when Damian looked at him.

Then he set to work.

There were no defenses when he climbed the walls this time. No bullets as he grabbed at the bricks. No fireballs as he ripped them from their mortar and tossed them away without a care.

And it took a while. Took pain and frustration. Destroyed his hands, tore open his knuckles, but Dick didn’t slow down. Didn’t stop, not until the walls were down, not until Robin’s – _his_ Robin’s – cage was annihilated.

Damian watched him the whole time, face perpetually, agonizingly, _hopeful_.

It kept Dick going, acted as his motivation, until he could finally, _finally_ , step through the rubble. Ignored the blood on his hands as he walked forward. Grinned as he approached the child he held so dearly.

_“Gotcha.”_

It wasn’t said, not truly, not ever. Just as Dick never truly held his hand out to his little brother, curled his fingers around that tiny hand and pulled him from the ruins of his own heart.

But the meaning was heard loud and clear. In every look, in every smile. In every conversation, every sleepy lean, every too-rare embrace.

_“I love you, Damian.”_

And Dick heard it, too. When Damian defended him, both physically and verbally. When Damian chose him over Bruce. When Damian _died_ for him. When Damian came _back_ , and flipped into Dick’s arms like he owned the space.

_“I love you, too, Grayson.”_

The walls were never rebuilt. And if it were a fairytale, the story would have ended there, with the cliché: ‘And the two lived happily ever after.’

But this wasn’t a fairytale. Dick was no knight in shining armour, and Damian was no damsel in distress.

This was real life. With real dangers and real deaths and real betrayals and real tragedies.

They lived happily ever after anyway.


End file.
